Literature of Love
by no-tracing-herman
Summary: Blaine Anderson's life has been consumed by instilling passion for literature into young college students. There is something different about the beautiful, intelligent, enigmatic Kurt Hummel - with a disbelief in romantic love and a hatred for Shakespeare. Can Blaine fill Kurt with a passion for life and teach him that love exists in the real world?
1. Chapter 1

The life of a college professor had swallowed him – whole. That suited him just fine; diving into his work and letting it consume him, letting it inform his life, his entire existence –

Well, it wasn't a problem. Blaine prided himself on the fact that his work was his everything. He prided himself on the fact he was so much more passionate, organised and knowledgeable than other teachers. He had a lot of time on his hands after all; he had absolutely no distractions.

The only thing Blaine Anderson detested about his life, was waking up at stupid o'clock to the unsympathetic, mechanical beep of his alarm. He rolled over and shut off the incessant chirping. He fished his horn rimmed glasses off the side and lazily slid them on to his face (missing a few times first and poking himself in the eye).

Blaine rolled out of bed, shoving on the first items of (semi) clean clothes he could find, and ran his fingers through bedraggled hair, before setting off out to face the cold New York air. It was a long time since he laid out freshly ironed suits every morning and showered every day.

Blaine wasn't keen on the idea of meeting his new class. He liked routine. He didn't like new people. He took a deep breath, and another, and one more: 'Remember, new people are just friends you haven't met yet'. He really believed whole heartedly in that statement. His students always became friends to him: friends that you don't really talk to, or communicate with-at all- well, except the grading of essays.

He had spent a lot of time planning the first semester. He always liked to start out with Shakespeare. After all, learning about Shakespeare was one of those monumental milestones. It was one of those life enriching experiences that you can never quite shake. Blaine walked through the cold, rainy streets with a dog-eared copy of 'Macbeth' buried bellow his jacket.

He considered the dusty, lecture theatre to be his real home. There was something about the old, musky smell that spoke of generations of enlightenment, passion and potential. Blaine sat behind his desk and breathed deeply for a few seconds. He could do this.

The class slowly filled up as students eventually found their way through the maze of hallways. Blaine smiled, he'd written his name on the board: Professor Anderson, and left it at that – for now. Nerves were flying through the air, glances shot around the room; it was reminiscent of animals being introduced to a new environment, sizing up their competition.

There was a polite knock on the door. A boy stuck his head in the room. For a second, Blaine was captivated with his beauty. His skin was almost white, and his golden brown hair was perfectly stilled. The boy had striking features: his face was thin with outstanding cheek bones, his nose was slightly too big for his face, and his prominent bright blue eyes shimmered like the sea.

"Excuse me," his angelic voice sang, "is this Professor Andersons class?"

"Yeah," Blaine smiled, removing his glasses, "take a seat."

"Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find my way," the boy sighed, moving gracefully through the classroom. Blaine slowly placed his glasses back on his face, walked out from behind his desk and clapped his hands together.

Being a Professor had its own kind of quiet power. Magic that struck through the hall making every student's soul focus Blaine. He grinned once more, relishing in the authority and respect this position afforded him.

"Every new school year you've entered," he barked, "your teachers have prepared some elaborate speech, singing their own praises and altering your opinion of them through the projection of their better qualities. Now, I'm not going to do that-" his eyes held a glimmer of something eccentric, "I'm not going to fill you with bias. I'm going to let you make your own opinion of me; but be warned, your opinion of me is worth half your grade."

Blaine winked and a teetering of nervous laughter spread through the room. Everyone immediately recognised how lucky they were. They'd got the cool Professor, the funny Professor, the young Professor who still cared about his job and about his pupils. Everyone- except the pretty boy who merely smirked slightly.

"We're starting off this semester with Shakespeare." Blaine looked around the room, noticing exactly who groaned, who looked bored, who smirked and the pretty boy who rolled his eyes, "Now, before you all fall asleep, hear me out! Shakespeare is a literary genius- he's an amazing story teller whose work has been glorified by intellectuals for hundreds of years. People far cleverer than you, I might add.

But- I don't think you're all hopeless cases. I have faith. I have faith that some of you will really understand how intelligent, gripping and, in some cases, poetically beautiful his plays are. I have faith in you guys, so don't let me down. Anyway, you may have been taught Shakespeare before, but you've never been taught Shakespeare by me, and I guarantee you'll enjoy it."

Smiles were etched on most of the student's faces now. Eager to listen, eager to get started, eager to learn more about their passion. A lazy hand was slung into the air.

"Yes?"

"You guarantee I'll enjoy learning about an infamous, promiscuous, misogynistic, dead man?" The pretty boy smirked again.

"They'll be plenty of time to argue over the hard hitting topics later. Believe me when I say, I'm not asking you to worship or appreciate the guy, just his talent for writing stuff down in an interesting way." Blaine drawled, "Believe me, I'm glad you've asked that question, truly. Literature is all about personal analysis and interpretation. Reading text and making your own informed opinion. I certainly look forward to debating with you, Mr?"

"Hummel, Kurt Hummel."

"Okay Kurt," Blaine replicated the smirk on his pretty face, "Nice to meet you." Blaine peered over his glasses at the boy for a few seconds before gazing across the whole lecture theatre. "Right, we're starting with Macbeth. There are a couple of copies in the library, there are free digital copies on the college website, or you can always spend a couple of bucks on a tangible copy you can scribble on to your heart's content.

This is the way this class works, and at first you're all going to think it's too much work, it's hard, it's impossible, BUT you will get your heads around the work load soon enough.

Every Monday I tell you which text we're reading. Seen as we're studying Shakespeare and there are five Acts in a Shakespeare play, I expect you to read an Act a night. Tuesday, we talk about and debate Act 1, Wednesday Act 2, Thursday, Act 3 and Friday Act 4. I give you your assignments on Friday. I expect you to have completed your assignments by Monday. You analyse Act 5 all by your selves, okay?"

Nods circulated around the class on worried faces.

"The essays have a word limit; I want no more than 2,000 words. That's pretty short for a college essay but I want you to have an argument, stick to that argument and be succinct about it. All essays have to be typed, any typeface you want, but don't take the piss-"

There was a collective gasp.

Blaine laughed, "Sorry, I've read too many essays in Egyptian hieroglyphics and random symbols over the years, and even worse, comic sans."Blaine faked a shiver and relished in the giggles that received. "Since this is the first week, I'm going to give you the assignment today – to help you out – so when you're reading Macbeth you can have the question fresh in your mind."

Blaine walked over to the board and elegantly scrawled, 'Macbeth's latent homosexuality was the reason for his demise – discuss."

Blaine turned and surveyed the looks of panic on everyone's faces – everyone except one, Kurt was just calmly writing the essay title in his planner.

"That's it for today, don't forget to read Act 1 for tomorrow, and keep the essay title in mind. Good luck." He winked and watched everyone shuffle out. Except one.

Kurt Hummel crossed his legs and looked intently at Blaine. "You think you're really smart."

"Is that meant to be an insult?"

"No, just an observation. That little speech at the beginning of the class, clever really, it means you only ever need to write one speech – because speech writing is 'bellow you'." Kurt raised an eyebrow," and the rest of the lesson, do the same every year right? That arrogant, cool Professor act? You're nervous really. You blush too much. And you can't stop playing with your glasses."

Blaine shifted his hand from where he'd previously been fiddling with his specs. Kurt smirked.

"No one ever called you out before? Also, I hope you don't make us evaluate every one of Shakespeare's protagonists for latent homosexuality. I know you're going for the scare factor- every student in this class is currently thinking they completely misinterpreted what Macbeth was about.

But calling him gay, it's a little offensive, don't you think? To call someone gay because they lack masculinity and don't have an offspring? And the overbearing psycho wife must be a beard, right? In my opinion: too much of a stereotype."

"I look forward to reading your essay."

"I look forward to writing it, and proving to you exactly why you're wrong."

Blaine found himself smiling for no reason, "So, you're familiar with Shakespeare then?"

"Most of his work, yeah." Kurt smiled back, a real smile this time, "I can be pretty opinionated and sometimes it comes across as arrogance."

"It comes across as passion for this subject, and, a slight hatred of Shakespeare."

"I don't hate him," Kurt smirked again, "I appreciate his penmanship, I just think he's overrated. It's like; he's masked the holes in his plots with clever rhyme schemes and jokes to appease the audience."

Blaine sat on his desk and removed his glasses, setting them aside. "Well, Shakespeare didn't technically invent the stories, you know? Most of them were oral tales which he embellished. Also, at this time, theatre was more like a party. The groundlings would have been eating and drinking and shouting – having a fun time in general, which means it wouldn't be likely they'd notice that the play spans all of three days. They just go watch an exciting, dramatic, entertaining and fast paced play and... Sorry, you should be out, making friends, not talking to your Professor about Shakespeare!"

"I like the subject." Kurt said simply, "I'd rather make friends with someone who shares my interests, than one of those idiots who are just taking this course because they're good at it or whatever. But, I should probably get going; I need to reread Macbeth, right?"


	2. Chapter 2

A cute blonde haired girl stuck up her hand in class later that week, "I totally get what you mean about Macbeth being gay. I mean, when you think about it he has no children. Yet, he and Lady Macbeth are of an age where they, by all intents and purposes, should have a child-"

"One of them could be baron," One of the boys, Drake, supplied, "It doesn't necessarily mean Macbeth wasn't sexually attracted to his wife. I think Lady Macbeth's lack of femininity and her 'unsex me here' speech suggests she's rejected the whole idea of gender roles, perhaps because she can't fulfil her gender role and have a child."

"I disagree," the girl countered, "it makes sense, but personally I think her speech is all about how oppressive being a woman is in patriarchal society. How women are expected to act in this kind, tame and meek way and she wants to be 'unsex'ed so there is no restraints placed upon her and she can act in an evil and deceptive way-"

The red haired girl, Blaine thought her name was Tiffany, something that started with a 'T' joined the discussion, "I mean, it's interesting that she says 'unsex me' as opposed to 'make me a man', it's like she recognises the weaknesses in both sexes. Most likely because she's married to Macbeth and he's, in her opinion, emasculated. Not having children doesn't mean Macbeth is gay, you could put down the inability to conceive down to so many things, like the loveless marriage, or one of them being baron, the only real evidence for Macbeth's possible latent homosexuality is his lack of masculinity-"

"But!" Kurt finally exclaimed. Blaine looked at him eagerly. Something about this Kid made Blaine want to pay attention. He didn't know whether it was the intelligence or the arrogance; Kurt Hummel was an enigma.

"Shakespeare was in a theatrical environment at a time where lots of gay people were attached to the theatre – as actors. There are also a number of scholars that would argue Shakespeare himself is gay, or at least bisexual, with all his 'fair youth' sonnets. At the time homosexuality was, yes illegal, but in the circles Shakespeare was interacting with it was accepted.

All I'm saying is being in an environment like that, being a possible gay man with a number of definitely gay acquaintances, would Shakespeare really be that narrow minded and stereotypical? Is a lack of masculinity really an indication of homosexuality?"

Blaine clapped his hands twice demanding attention. "Gold star," he beamed, "GOLD STAR. Okay, that opens up an interesting topic actually. When you're talking about, oh I don't know, 'A Streetcar Named Desire' by Tennessee Williams, one of the main topics is: How much is the protagonist a reflection of himself?

So, with the knowledge that Shakespeare was potentially a homosexual, how do you imagine that effected and influenced his work? Would you think he would include gay characters in his work? Would he make it obvious? Would he be stereotypical? How much of himself do you think are in his characters?"

Tiffany took up the topic again, "Most of his plays were based on either historical characters or popular oral tales. Shakespeare made them great, permanent, but still, is their really much room for personal interpretation when playing around with much loved stories?"

"Good point." Blaine sighed, "Well, Shakespeare really fleshed out these characters, elaborated the stories to make them more entertaining. I think there was a lot of room for personal interpretation. Even his plays which are based on real people aren't accurate reflections of these people, he's merely using them to tell the story he wants to tell. It's like...it's like placing a famous actor in a movie so people will go see it – basing a play on a real, famous, historical figure makes people want to see it."

"You're going off track." Kurt basically called him out, "I agree, Shakespeare had room to elaborate and truthfully create characters, and of course the characters would have been based in part in his reality, but that doesn't mean Macbeth is gay. The point I was making is simply that just because Macbeth isn't masculine it doesn't mean he's gay. Shakespeare doesn't usually pigeon-hole his characters. He isn't necessarily stereotypical, so why would he be when it came to this matter?

And, why do we keep saying that Macbeth isn't masculine? Lady Macbeth certainly seems to think so: but she's domineering and manipulative. Are we forgetting that Macbeth is, in fact, a great warrior? Is that an emasculating quality?"

"Of course not. Interesting point. But unfortunately we are out of time. I want that essay on my desk for Monday so, consider the arguments and write up what you believe. I want you to show BOTH SIDES of the argument, but you don't have to be respectful of the other side, by all means rip the other side to shreds if you think it's stupid. I'm excited about these essays guys. Really." Blaine smiled and resumed his seat behind his desk. Student's filed out until it was just Blake and Kurt hanging around.

Blake shoved his glasses up on his nose and smiled at Kurt. "You raise an interesting argument, Kurt is it?"

"Yeah, and you're Blake, right?"

"Right, do you think Macbeth is gay?"

"I think if you evaluate any character enough you can create an argument for it. Since it isn't explicitly stated I guess Macbeth could be gay. But do I think he is? No, no... no."

"The only character of Shakespeare's I think is gay is Iago in 'Othello'. I've heard all the arguments, for all the characters, and the argument for him being gay is just too convincing?"

"I've never heard it." Kurt smiled, and god, it took Blaine's breath away. He felt creepy for watching this interaction, but it wasn't his fault, they had just started talking in front of his desk."

"Have you read the play?" Blake asked running a hand through his hair. Kurt nodded, "I'll send you the essay I read. It was very convincing. Can I have your email?"

Kurt rooted around in his bag and handed him what looked suspiciously like a business card. "Hummel Tires and Lube," Blake read, "Kinky."

"Shut up, my Dad's a mechanic. Half the business belongs to me. So I have my own cards. One of the perks I guess. Anyway, we've been standing here a while, I'm sure Professor Anderson has work to do and I just need to ask him a few questions, do you mind?"

"No, its fine, yeah, I'll email you that stuff tonight and, errm- see you Monday I guess?"

"Yeah, see you."

Blaine waited until he couldn't hear the retreating footsteps anymore before he removed his glasses. He walked around the edge of the desk, leant against it and crossed his arms. "Why would you pass up a sure thing to talk to your professor?"

"A sure thing?" Kurt frowned.

"God, how naive are you? He wanted you." Blaine peered at the flushing boy. Kurt's mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish and he was rubbing his hands nervously on his jeans. "Sorry, sorry, I'm being presumptuous aren't I? I hope you don't think I'm an arse hole if I say I thought my gaydar was a little better than it evidentially is."

"I...I am gay." Kurt sighed, "And I don't care about you being presumptuous. Everyone is, I mean I'm kind of a stereotype, but I still fight against stereotypes because I maintain that someone with my voice and interests could still be straight as a pin."

"True, true. And Blake could very well be straight except for the blatant flirting. Not your type?"

"Because intelligent and gorgeous isn't my type?"Kurt snorted, "He seems nice. I just don't jump into bed with the first guy who shows a bit of interest. Not that it's any of your business. He doesn't seem the type to stick around."

"Look who's being presumptuous now..."

Kurt flushed again his jaw set into a harsh line and after a few seconds he looked up at Blaine. "I just wanted to ask about the essay. How do you want it structured?"

"How do you want to structure it?"

"Probably like an essay," Kurt shrugged, "But I can be spontaneous and if you don't give me clear, instructions in a couple of week's time I can guarantee you I'll write you a dialogue between the characters or something stupid and I'll fail."

"You can write it however you want. I'm not restrictive. I encourage creativity. As long as you get both sides of the argument in there and make your own opinion clear then you can present it however you like."

"Okay. I guess I'll see you Monday."

Kurt walked away looking a little deflated. For some reason, unbeknown why, Blaine couldn't bear to see the boy leave. "Kurt," he shouted after him, "I really am looking forward to it, your essay I mean."

"Good, you should be." Kurt smirked and suddenly he had a spring in his step again as he left.

Xx

Blaine hadn't expected to see Kurt again until Monday. So when he walked into his favourite cafe, his dog Buster on a leash, he didn't expect to see the elfish looking boy reading quietly in the corner. Blaine could always get his coffee and go. Pretend he hadn't seen him. But...that would be impolite. He glanced over to the table and saw Kurt had an empty cup.

"What's the cute guy over there drinking?" He asked at the counter.

"Mocha I think." She replied biting her lip.

"Okay, a mocha and a medium drip please."

Blaine stood a little uncomfortably near the counter. He wasn't sure if he was behaving correctly. Was it right to buy a student coffee? Was it appropriate? 'It's just coffee Blaine,' he told himself, 'it's not exactly inappropriate.'

Blaine wasn't used to social interaction. With anyone outside class. He had NO friends. Except for his brother who he saw twice a year. And his whole cool/snarky professor act was exactly that, an act. Could he keep it up out of school? Should he keep it up out of school?

Blaine had to stop thinking for enough time to pay. He grabbed the drinks, thanked the girl, and walked over to Kurt.

"Fancy seeing you here." He smirked sliding into the seat opposite him. "I bought you coffee."

"Thanks," Kurt said, completely unphased. Blaine was a little shocked at how composed he was acting. But then again, why wouldn't he act composed?

"Isn't this weird?"

"I don't know Prof., is it? I appreciate free coffee and company. Plus I had a teacher back home who had no perception of personal boundaries – not like that – although I occasionally suspected...never mind, how do?" Kurt discarded his book into a messenger bag that was next to him.

"I do okay, this is Buster." Blaine gestured to the dog. Kurt made a face and nodded. He didn't really like animals. "This is weird." Blaine affirmed, "I just wanted to say hi, it'd have been rude to just ignore you but – I'll leave you to your book."

"No, no, I'm bored stiff, I could do with the company, please!"

"O-okay. How are you getting on with the essay?"

"Finished it yesterday." Kurt shrugged.

"On a Friday night!"

Kurt shrugged again.

"God Kurt, it's college, you're allowed to have some fun!"

Kurt flushed slightly, "I don't have any friends. I don't want any."

"Why? I mean, you're not unsociable or anything... You seem to be nice to me."

"Friends screw you over. I'd rather just talk to people civilly. People who I can't get beyond a superficial relationship with."

"People like me?" Blaine raised an eyebrow. His question was answered with another shrug. "What are you reading anyway?"

"F. Scott Fitzgerald, ' The Beautiful and Damned'"

"Interesting, you like it?"

"No, I mean Anthony is so narcissistic it is unbelievable- and Caramel is writing, being creative, and it's like, Anthony keeps putting him down when he himself has no intention of doing anything with his life. And like, some of the observations about "fat", or "bony", or "ugly" people are just barbaric and unfair."

"I think it's meant to be ironic..."

"It's plain mean."

"But the title Kurt! You have to remember Fitzgerald is looking at the world from the perspective of the elite, the rich and the beautiful. Every observation he makes about the poor or ugly isn't necessarily his opinion, and the TITLE, the ugly and poor have it better than the beautiful and damned."

"I hope he gets to the 'damned' bit pretty damned quickly 'cos I'm bored."

"I'm setting myself a project," Blaine said whimsically, "By the end of the year I'm going to have you make at least one positive observation about a book. I'm going to make you stop being so cynical."

"You have a challenge on your hands then." Kurt raised an eyebrow, "life never gives me an opportunity to stop being cynical. It's just one shit thing promptly followed by another."


	3. Chapter 3

Monday night and Blaine was grading essays. He point blank refused to use red pens as he thought they were intimidating. Ask any kid what their worst fear is and it will probably be an essay handed back to them that's written on in red pen. Well, maybe not ANY kid. Blaine always hated it when he was at school though; even positive comments looked daunting in that dark crimson scrawl. Red symbolises anger, danger and errors. Blaine much preferred to use purple pen – he wasn't one hundred per cent sure what that symbolised...he'd heard Roman Nobility said before, but he doubted any of his students would pick up an essay and think anything about ancient Rome. At least purple was a friendly color.

Blake had written an interesting essay. He'd tried to argue for the statement and Blaine respected that (after all, it was more difficult to argue for the statement than against it) his points were succinct, lucid and fluent and at no point did Blaine feel offended. Kim, the blond haired girl that sat in the front row, had written a much more narrow-minded, stereotypical answer. The knowledge was there but it lacked some kind of spark that Blaine desperately wanted from her. He marked essay after essay after essay and some were certainly more pleasing than others. He had some real potential in his class this year.

When Blaine reached Kurt's essay he suddenly felt nervous. He had placed so much hope on Kurt's shoulders after only a week of class. Still, Blaine sensed something special about him: he was perceptive, creative and intelligent – he was everything one would need to be in order to get ahead. Kurt's cynicism bothered Blaine, sure, but Blaine didn't quite know why.

He'd put it down to the fact that Kurt had a real potential, but if his judgement was blocked by this constant grey cloud that followed him around then he would never get to the true meanings of texts. Especially not Shakespeare. Shakespeare includes both light and dark and to be truly analytical Kurt would have to be able to access both sides of himself.

Kurt's essay was cynical, as expected, he seemed to be able to find no joy in the text- yet Blaine was ready to let him off, just this once, since it was 'Macbeth' they were reading and there wasn't an awful lot of joy to be found in it.

His argument was strong and clear throughout: Macbeth is not gay, to assume so is an injustice to both Shakespeare's creation and the LGBT community (since the only evidence found is drawn through stereotypes). Kurt had a witty, controlled, arrogant and concise tone to his writing. Blaine could see Kurt having a future as some kind of literature, or theatre, critic for an arts magazine. He was impressed. He was glad he was impressed. He wasn't putting false hope in Kurt; Kurt really did have something.

Except, the rest of the week, Kurt really wasn't shinning as brightly as Blaine had hoped. In fact, he looked depressed. Kurt stared at his desk, often not taking part in the discussion of this week's play ('Hamlet'-Blaine had chosen a much more traditional question for this week: 'Was Hamlet mad, or do the supernatural elements in the play have a basis in reality?' Blaine liked this week's question. It was conventional, yet very broad; it wasn't necessarily easy to answer. )

Blaine couldn't work out if Kurt was just uninterested in Hamlet's struggle against his step father, or if he was genuinely upset about something. It seemed like the spark had just up and left the poor boy over night. Tiffany seemed to have some interesting arguments, and a few more classmates had started to speak up this week.

Blaine was particularly impressed with a short, curvy, hippy-like brunette called Sam. Sam seemed to have a firm grip in reality. She disbelieved in the supernatural and assumed the ghost was a sign of Hamlet's decent into madness. She cross referenced this with how Macbeth started seeing ghosts when he was going mad and stated it was a deliberate plot device used by Shakespeare to directly show the decent into madness. She also made some interesting references to the bizarre play 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead' by Tom Stoppard. Yes, Blaine liked her, she was certainly verbally articulate. But her written work lacked the passion that Kurt's seemed to practically embody.

By the end of the week Blaine was worried, so worried in fact that he made Kurt stay behind after Friday's lesson. Quite frankly, Blaine was mad. Kurt didn't seem like the type who just stopped paying attention out of boredom. He had too much potential to just mindlessly waste it like this.

Kurt trudged to the front of the class as everyone left. His shoulders were slumped, his attention was focused solely on the ground and he looked desperate to avoid any kind of conflict.

"Kurt, what is it? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, is that it? Can I go now?"

"You're not getting out of it that easily!" Blaine said, surprising himself with how harsh his tone sounded, "You can't just come in here Kurt and have the nerve to not pay attention to anything that's going on around you. This is Literature Kurt. Your essays benefit from full participation in class work. If you ignore what everyone is saying, you're going to find it difficult to explore different opinions in your...are you crying?" Blaine suddenly stopped and took a chance to look at Kurt, really look at him, for the first time this week.

He looked...positively exhausted.

"S-s-s-sorry, I-I-I'm sssorry," Kurt hiccupped, "It won't happen again, can I please go now?"

"No, no, come with me." Blaine led the boy out. What Kurt needed now was a friend. Blaine knew he wasn't fantastic at the 'friend' thing, but from what he could gather, neither was Kurt. Blaine had originally intended for them to go out and get coffee, until he realised he'd forgotten his wallet. He wasn't about to make Kurt pay for his own idea. So, Blaine did the only thing he could possibly do, he led Kurt back to his apartment.

He knew he'd crossed a line now. One he couldn't un-cross. Still, he'd known teachers tutor their students at home, hell, he'd even witnessed a few teacher/student relationships over time. The college didn't condemn it. After all, the pupils were considered adults now – they were able to make their own decisions and their own mistakes. The only problem was, Blaine had drawn himself a line a long time ago, a line that dictated how much of his personal life he would bring into his professional career. Yeah, this was crossing the line.

"Make yourself comfortable," Blaine smiled. He went to the kitchen in order to make them both some coffee, some STRONG coffee. "Do you take sugar and milk?"

"M-milk no sugar, please." Kurt had already seemed to visibly relax. He was even petting Buster, if a little tentatively.

"Okay, there you go."Blaine handed over the drink and took a seat at the opposite side of the couch. He cradled his own drink in his hands and looked around. "Errm, sorry about the mess. I'm not really used to company...at all."

"It's fine." Kurt said taking a sip of the coffee and smiling ever so slightly.

"And I really shouldn't have brought you back here but you looked like you needed a hot drink."

"And some company?"

"And some company." Blaine agreed, "What's going on Kurt? I know I've only known you for two weeks but...this seems like uncharacteristic behaviour, right?"

"Right, I guess, it's...urgh, it's my roommate. She's been ill and I haven't been able to sleep."

"Roommate? I didn't think you did friends."

"Rachel Berry is NOT my friend." Kurt rolled his eyes and chuckled wryly, "Rachel Berry has always been, and will always be, my rival in every sense of the word. But we're alike, we get on relatively well and we have no one else."

Blaine nodded. He somehow understood that sort of relationship, even if it was oxymoronic. He'd always had a similar relationship with Cooper: they despised each other because they were constantly competing, but they were so alike they somehow fell into a pattern of just coping with each other.

"No, Rachel is sweet and I love her dearly, but she's annoying as hell and I contemplate daily about the most effective way to kill her."

"Healthy relationship." Blaine snorted, taking another swig of his coffee.

"I never said it was healthy. It's functional. That's all you can really ask for sometimes. Still, we're both fiercely protective of one another and even though I want to strangle her...I love her."

"Okay, so, carry on with the story."

"Rachel is sick. She's only got the flu but she's a major hypochondriac. She thinks she's going to die and I've been burdened with the task of looking after her. When she's ill she gets all delirious. She keeps yelling at me 'You've thrown away your talent, Kurt, your passion, and for what? Some dusty old books that no one cares about'."

"Your talent?"

"I used to be all into musical theatre. Rachel thinks it is as essential to your survival as air, or food, or something. But still, I can't shake the feeling that maybe she's right."

"You don't care about Literature?"

"Oh, I definitely care about Literature. I love it. I wouldn't study something that I don't enjoy. But what if I threw away my true calling?"

"What made you change your mind?" Blaine asked, genuinely curious.

"I didn't get into the musical theatre program at NYADA. Still, Rachel couldn't have survived out here without a roommate to help with rent. I didn't fancy being the waiter or the guy who worked in target or whatever, while she was little miss college. So, I rang around every college close enough to where we'd be staying to see if they had any spare places on courses in fashion, literature or music. I took the first offer I got. Rachel thought I should have just waited and applied to NYADA again."

"Why didn't you?"

"I wouldn't have got in." Kurt shrugged, "And I don't mind. I really DO enjoy this subject. I'm just so tired with looking after her. She's kind of a bitch when she's ill."

"Should you be getting back to her?"

"My step-brother, her boyfriend, arrived this morning. He's visiting for a couple of weeks and...I don't really want to see him."

"Why?"

"Does it matter, god, what's with all the questions?" Kurt shut off again.

"I'm genuinely worried about my most talented pupil," Blaine said earnestly, "...I shouldn't be doing this...but I guess you can sleep here for the night, take my bed, I'll sleep on the sofa."

"You don't have too-"

"-Please Kurt, you look exhausted."


End file.
